Wednesday, September 9, 2009

If you're lucky, they'll graduate

I was surprised to learn that some universities have less than a 40% graduation rate. Who would send their kid to a place where they have less than a 50% chance of graduating?

I was also surprised that the U of Iowa has only a 66% graduation rate. I was about to gloat and boast of the virtues of a private liberal arts education... but then I saw that my alma mater Coe has a graduation rate of 67%.

Doh!

People working in any profession see signs that worry them. In higher education I see the move to online classes, much larger class sizes and skyrocketing tuition as storm clouds gathering. Fortunately - for those of us in higher education - the health care system is so fucked up nobody is noticing us.

3 comments:

  1. Are those figures 4-year graduation rates, or graduation rates period? Somehow that seems very low for Coe, esp. when you see the sizes of the graduating classes. Where did you get that figure, Steve?

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  2. The link is in the post. It's a six year graduation rate. In four years I'm sure Coe would beat Iowa. Then again, I was pretty sure Coe had better than a 67% graduation rate.

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  3. Steve,

    Iowa rocks Coe's 4 year rates... well i doubt that. But most colleges only track 6 year cohorts which makes it difficult. Now if you look at overall grad rates i wonder what you would find i have at least one 20 year old return each week meaning they left iowa with minimal credits left tograduate and now 20 years later they actually need that degree to move up!!

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